


from the first day (i've been yours)

by sunshinedm



Category: NCT (Band)
Genre: Friends to Lovers, M/M, childhood best friends
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-01
Updated: 2020-05-01
Packaged: 2021-03-01 23:14:26
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,615
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23945278
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sunshinedm/pseuds/sunshinedm
Summary: Later he thought that perhaps everyone fell for Mark Lee, even just a little, at least once in their lifetime. There was no way anyone who’d ever met him could have resisted the charm of having someone listen to them like Mark did, to have ignored the way his eyes lit up when he talked about his music. Perhaps everyone fell in love with their best friend, even just a little, at least once in their lifetime.
Relationships: Lee Jeno/Mark Lee
Comments: 4
Kudos: 37





	from the first day (i've been yours)

**Author's Note:**

  * For [sincerelyjeno](https://archiveofourown.org/users/sincerelyjeno/gifts).



> this first work is a gift for my best friend ria! happy birthday to the one and only star that lights up the universe. this fic sort of goes a couple different directions but i hope you've enjoyed the storyline!

Falling for Mark came slow, blooming with youth and maturing as they grew. Even though it’d always been them from the beginning, it’d changed and shaped itself into something stronger, much more beautiful. A promise of forever at the very base and soul. Mark and Jeno Lee.

They’d been inseparable from the start, attached at the hip every second of the day ever since they’d met on the playground in second grade. Mark, in an attempt to impress the younger boy, had jumped off the swings in a less than graceful manner and had scraped his knees upon reaching the ground.

Jeno was quick to run from the other side of the swingset, taking an already crying Mark into his arms, calmly reassuring him it was okay even when his heart was racing away in his chest. But it was, if Jeno was holding Mark’s hand, telling him everything would turn out fine, then Mark knew it would be.

Jeno ended up walking Mark to the nurse’s office, a little too young to carry the boy on his back. Although, he’d probably have tried it anyway had it not been for their teacher warning him that one injured boy was more than enough. 

There hadn’t been much small talk on the way there, Mark being a tad bit too embarrassed he’d cried in front of the most popular boy in his class and Jeno struggling to find a way to make conversation with the smartest boy in his year. 

Once they’d arrived, Mark was reluctantly taken inside the room alone while Jeno had been asked to return to class and they parted ways, Mark only managing to muster up a small smile. He’d wanted to stay with the boy a little longer, even though they hadn’t spoken much.

“Bye, Jen!” Mark waves as he’s led down another hallway. He turns back to see Jeno’s eyes widen, a goofy smile stretched across his tiny face. Only then does Mark realize he’s slipped. “Oh. Jen...o. Haha. See you later, then.”

Mark rushes in quickly after that, hiding his bright pink cheeks and giant smile.

Once Mark is finally released from the nurse’s office, he takes two lollipops from the dispenser in the front office, pocketting them for when he sees Jeno later. A thank you with something sweet, a conversation starter really.

As soon as he steps out into the hallway, he’s met with a giggly Jeno, eyes bright with mischief.

Jeno jumps away from the wall he’d been leaning on. “Guess who?”

“Jeno?” Mark’s eyes almost pop out of their sockets, he quickly scans the area for any teachers, grabbing onto Jeno’s hand and pulling him down the hallway.

“That’s right!” Jeno grins. 

_ Jeno has a pretty smile. _

“What are you doing out here? You’re going to get in trouble!” Mark exclaims, he doesn’t really understand how Jeno hasn’t been spotted yet.

“I was waiting for you!” Jeno looks down at Mark’s hand in his and wiggles his eyebrows at Mark who immediately tries to retract his hand. Jeno doesn’t let him, instead he holds it tighter and pulls him along. “How could they think I was just going to let you walk all the way back to class all by yourself? Of course I waited!”

“Oh, thank you,” Mark is almost completely sure his cheeks have tinted pink at the exchange. It’s probably just Jeno being Jeno, but Mark has never really had a friend to care for him like this and it makes him awkward and shy. He vocalizes this when they’ve arrived in front of their classroom, recess long since having ended by this time and Jeno’s smile drops from his face for the first time since Mark has met him.

“You don’t have any friends?” Jeno looks positively offended at the fact, like Mark not having any friends at this age is the worst thing in the whole wide world. Mark nods, embarrassed. 

After a few moments, those of which Mark takes to regret every single thing he has ever done in his seven years of life, Jeno grabs his hand again and tugs him inside, by-passing their teacher and heading straight for his group of friends.

“Hey guys, this is Mark! He’s really smart! He likes science and stuff, Nana you’re really bad at that, he can help!”

A little boy with blue hair is quick to give his complaints as soon as the words leave Jeno’s mouth “Am not! It’s Hyuckie’s fault! He taught me wrong!”

Mark doesn’t even take the moment to think about the fact that Jeno knows what he likes even though he’s never told him. He is still reeling from being introduced to Jeno’s entire friend group, he stands dazed in front of the group of seven year olds who all stare at him with varying degrees of excitement. There are people here he’s never even seen before.

“Hello! I’m Nana,” The blue haired boy pulls Mark into a hug quickly and turns to the boy beside him. “This is Hyuckie! He likes hugs too but he’s sort of shy. Go ahead Hyuckie, give him a hug.”

Nana reaches for the boy’s hand and whispers something in his ear. Hyuckie nods and opens his arms for Mark, shutting his eyes tightly as Mark approaches. It is adorable, Hyuckie is adorable.

Once Mark is in Hyuckie’s arms he holds him really tight and whispers something in his ear as well. “I think you’re very cool for liking hugs Hyuckie.”

Hyuckie pulls away with a grin and tucks himself into Nana’s side, cheeks flaming red.

“Oh he’s perfect!” Nana exclaims, he loves Mark already.

It takes Mark a little longer, a couple days, weeks, before he learns to love every single boy for their own. With a little help from Jaemin and his newfound best friend (read: Lee Jeno), friendship is never short again.

Years go by and paths differ, tears change friendships but time heals. 

It is the summer after their graduation and Donghyuck breaks the news that he’s leaving to study abroad, New York. With only a few days to his flight, he tells the boys he’s been accepted into an exceptional music program and he’s gotten a full ride. An offer he’d dreamed of his entire life.

Jaemin cries the day of, he cries the night and the weeks after. A seam rips within their circle of friends, as the absence of Donghyuck makes its presence known and manifests in texts from Jaemin cancelling on plans for weeks on end. They understand, they do. It’d always been the four boys and seeing them as three would’ve hurt to see. If it hurt Jeno and Mark, it’d hurt Jaemin a thousand times worse.

Although, without Jaemin, there are only two boys left. Two boys stuck in the limbo of watching as both their best friends fell apart.

In time, a boy named Renjun is gifted to the pair of friends. He is bright eyed and animated, he twinkles when the light hits and he paints pretty pictures better than any others the boys had ever seen. 

At the very start of things, Jaemin would bristle whenever they came in range of each other, scared of letting in another boy to fill the spot of the one who’d brought about both the happiest of his days and the darkest. It seemed too soon, even after months.

“He’s really nice Jaemin,” Jeno sighs. “He’s done nothing but help you when you’re down and care for you. There’s no reason for you to be so mean to him.”

Jeno runs his fingers through Jaemin’s hair, hoping his words don’t fall sharp and hurt the boy whose head lays in his lap. He comes from a place of good intention but he knows Jaemin is sensitive when it comes to things like this, he isn’t Mark who takes things in stride even when they hurt or Donghyuck who takes the bits of advice he likes and throws the rest to the wind. Jaemin can only hold back too much before hurt slips through the slots of his fingers and threatens his heart. Jeno knows this, he wants to keep Jaemin happy but he has Renjun to think of now too.

“I love you Nana, you know I do but Renjun doesn’t deserve this. I know you know that and I’m going to leave this up for you to fix because I believe you will. I know it’s the hurt making you like this but I trust you won’t let it take over like this anymore.”

“It hurts so much Jen,” Jaemin whimpers, he curls into Jeno and Jeno feels a weight lift off his shoulders. For the first time in months, Jaemin has let his pain be seen, it doesn’t hide behind cold stares and empty promises. It sits right in front of him for Jeno to see.

“It’s okay to hurt Jaemin. It’s okay to scream and cry and storm away. You don’t have to hide anything from us, Min,” Jeno continues running his fingers through Jaemin’s hair, hoping it helps calm the tears he feels soaking through his shirt. “ We’re your best friends, we love you no matter what you’re feeling. If you’re sad, we’ll be right there with you, ready to do whatever it takes to make you happy again. It’s going to be us. Forever, Jaemin.”

Mark stands at the far end of the living room, two mugs of hot chocolate in one hand and a plate of cookies in the other, ready for his turn when it comes. 

“Forever,” Jaemin whispers back. “It’s us against the world.”

The night eases on and the next day brings an opportunity for a rebirth of sorts. The shell of a boy filling with the promise of something better to come.

It is the very last year of university for the boys- excluding Chenle and Jisung, the newest additions to the group, who are only now finishing their sophomore year- and the boys are more than happy to be nearing the finish line. 

It is around this time, when Jeno makes his first mistakes.

Mark is over one night under the pretense of only being able to study well if he’s in a quiet place (and what place better than in Jeno’s soundproof room) when Jeno sees  _ it _ . Since when did Mark’s eyes catch the light like that?

Jeno checks once, twice, three times until he’s sure it’s not just the late hours of the night tricking him into seeing things that don’t exist but it’s still there after every look. Mark’s eyes twinkle. The more he thinks on it, the warmer they are, they’re big and soft and they fill him with a feeling so similar to the one he gets when he’s in the arms of the people he loves.

Now, Jeno’s mind is going, running on fumes practically and it must be that they’d just finished watching a soft, heartwarming movie, that must’ve been why he was feeling like his life became so much brighter the fateful day he’d run into Mark Lee.

Mark’s presence in Jeno’s life had become irreplaceable, if there was a choice between having met and having not met Mark Lee, it’d have been a no brainer. Mark was the warm hugs he’d needed most when the world felt like it’d created itself a personal vendetta against Jeno. Mark was the little nose scrunches when Jeno did something cute, the reckless, booming laughter when Jeno told a joke. Mark was the moments when the smile stretched so far across Jeno’s face, those he wished would stay forever, the one he’d hoped would never fade. 

Now that he’d started, Jeno couldn’t stop thinking of all the sunshine, the surety, the happiness that came with having the other boy in his life. There was nothing he could do to stop himself from finding all the little things that made Mark so special to him. There was no turning back now that he’d realized what finding these things meant and Jeno thinks he’d really gone and done it then. How oh so very cliche of him to suddenly see his best friend in a different light at the very peak of their completely platonic friendship. How utterly cliche of him.

Then, Jeno began to see love in everything.

He’d begun to pick up on a little something more than the usual in the casual hand- holding, the afternoon cuddles, the stay safes, the eat wells. He couldn’t help but hope there was a little more in the late night phone calls and the morning walks and Jeno thought maybe he’d gone a tad insane. Maybe he’d taken this new light completely out of proportion, he’d practically gone on a field day over something so very small.

Later he thought that perhaps everyone fell for Mark Lee, even just a little, at least once in their lifetime. There was no way anyone who’d ever met him could have resisted the charm of having someone listen to them like Mark did, to have ignored the way his eyes lit up when he talked about his music.

Jeno lets himself think this is true, that he is just one of the masses and it will be no different and he won’t have to face the facts, if for a few minutes. Then he’s thinking again, how he knows Mark better than anyone. How his life would have taken a dive for the worse if Mark didn’t exist, if he wasn’t the person who made him happiest.

He needs to tell Mark.

It must be weeks before Jeno can build up the confidence, he even confides in Jaemin, hoping for some last minute advice on how to go about things. It must be the near ends of April, the start of May right around the corner, when Jeno begins hinting at wanting to be something a bit more than friends. 

Jeno can’t tell if Mark Lee is either the most oblivious boy in the entire world or if he is the kindest, blocking out Jeno’s attempts in order to preserve their friendship. Either way, Jeno is frustrated after the failure of his billionth attempt.

They’re both sat in the back of Mark’s truck, under a star-filled sky, when the frustration boils over and slips the words right out of Jeno’s mouth.

“I like you Mark,” Jeno pauses. “No, I love you. I love you so much and I’ve been trying to hint at it for the last few weeks and I don’t know if you’re just being considerate and trying to spare our friendship or something but I’m.”

Jeno doesn’t even have the chance to finish when Mark leans over and kisses the words right from Jeno’s lips. Jeno, surprised by the sudden movement, takes a moment to respond but falls into step quickly. He’s still reeling when Mark pulls back.

They sit in silence for a few moments, letting it sink in. Then Jeno whispers. “I’ve been trying to show you that I’m in love with you, Mark.”

Mark meets Jeno’s eyes before he responds, holding them in his.

“I know you have, I just wanted you to say it,” Mark grins and he holds both of Jeno’s hands in his. “I’ve been waiting for you to come around for a while now, you know that Jen?”

All Jeno can do is stare at him wide-eyed, heart beating away in his chest.

“From the first day, I knew you were special Jen,” Mark lifts Jeno’s hand and places a soft kiss on his knuckles. “I’ve always been yours. I was just waiting for you to be mine.”


End file.
